Theology, Åbo Akademi University Faculty of Arts Psychology and Theology, Turku, Finland
Med Humanit. 2023 Mar;49(1):9-16. doi: 10.1136/medhum-2021-012342. Epub 2022 Apr 29.
The aim of this article is to study the discursive construction of disability that takes place in the vaccine-autism controversy from the 1990s to 2000s, and an attempt to develop a more holistic framework to understand vaccine decisions and their motivations. It is argued that the debate over vaccines produces knowledge and meanings about disability, and that the vaccine-autism controversy is kept alive largely because of how it reproduces stigmatising accounts of disability and autism. The suggestion is that if the stigmatising elements of disability were removed in the debate over vaccines, there would be no controversy to keep alive in the broader vaccine debate. Hence, this article is an attempt to increase disability cultural competence in the media and among health authorities and health professionals and therethrough broaden the shared understanding of what it means to be or become disabled. By investigating the driving forces for past vaccine controversies, the goal is to find more constructive ways forward in present day and future debates over vaccines.
本文旨在研究从 20 世纪 90 年代到 21 世纪初，在疫苗-自闭症争议中出现的残疾话语建构，并尝试发展一个更全面的框架来理解疫苗决策及其动机。有人认为，关于疫苗的辩论产生了关于残疾的知识和意义，而疫苗-自闭症争议之所以能够持续存在，主要是因为它再现了对残疾和自闭症的污名化描述。有人提出，如果在疫苗辩论中消除了残疾的污名化因素，那么在更广泛的疫苗辩论中就没有什么争议需要继续存在。因此，本文试图提高媒体和卫生当局及卫生专业人员对残疾文化的理解能力，从而扩大对残疾和变得残疾意味着什么的共同理解。通过调查过去疫苗争议的驱动因素，目的是为当前和未来的疫苗辩论找到更具建设性的前进方向。
